Accountants in Auchtermuchty

Directors paying themselves a salary still need a PAYE scheme and RTI submissions, even in a one-person company. It's a five-minute monthly task with software — and a recurring penalty generator without it.

Miss 31 January and the £100 fine is automatic; three months later daily penalties start. If you're behind on a return, the maths almost always favours filing quickly over waiting — penalties grow on a timetable, and HMRC charges interest either way.

Register with HMRC by the 5 October after your first tax year of trading, open a separate business account, and put a fixed slice of every payment aside for tax. Do those three things and your first January will be boring — the good kind.

Scam "HMRC" messages outnumber real ones — HMRC doesn't demand payment by gift card or threaten arrest by text. Real letters have reference numbers that we can verify directly with HMRC before anyone responds.

The best time to switch is after a filing, but it works at any point in the year. What matters is not letting a looming deadline stop you: a new firm can usually pick up an in-flight year faster than you'd think.

Subcontractors under the Construction Industry Scheme have 20% deducted at source — often more than their final tax bill once expenses and the personal allowance are counted. That's why CIS refunds are so common: the average claim is well into four figures, but only if the deduction statements are all gathered.

From April 2026, self-employed people and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000 move onto Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: digital records and quarterly updates to HMRC, not one annual return. The year before is the right time to get bookkeeping into shape.

Payments on account catch people out because the first year effectively bills you one-and-a-half years of tax at once. Knowing that in advance changes how you save through the year — and if profits fall, we can apply to reduce the July payment rather than lending HMRC money interest-free.